6.15.2007

It's ALMOST over- teaching that is! I've sat through my last faculty meeting, cleaned the darkroom up, updated curriculum, and done all those wonderful things that we educators are expected to do before heading out into the wilds of SUMMER VACATION!!!! As a gift to myself after getting paid for writing a grueling 15 pages of AP curriculum for the AP Audit (you don't want to know, really) I bought a kiln for enameling!!! Yay! It should be arriving any day now! I love enameling- because I love color, metal and fire, and this technique offers all three! I learned cloisonne first (the center green and pink piece), which was arguably the hardest and most tedious technique- I slaved over this first piece which was based on a microscopic image of the Avian flu virus. I would like to make more, more viruses pieces that is. I am thinking of doing a series on beautiful things that frighten me- Avian flu, cancer cells, Paris out on parole- the last one could be hard to replicate in glass...

While cloisonne and champleve are both very beautiful and definitely a mastered craft, I tend to like to be a bit more experimental. I loved using a silk screening-ish technique and making stencils. The pictures posted are of a few pieces where I sifted through stencils, or screens. I can't wait to get back to firing, so look for new pieces in my shop in a couple of weeks! For now you can see more of my enamels and other jewelry on my flickr page. Only a couple more hours till freedom!!